Digital Wiretap Warrant: Improving the security of ETSI Lawful Interception

Lawful Interception (LI) of data communications is an essential tool for Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) in order to investigate criminal activities carried out or coordinated by means of Internet. However, the ability to secretly monitor the activities of citizens also has a great impact on civil rights. Therefore, democratic societies must prevent abuse and ensure that LI is only employed in specific cases with justifiable grounds or a probable cause. Nowadays, in many countries each interception must be authorized by a wiretap warrant, usually issued by a judge. However, this wiretap warrant is merely an administrative document that should be checked by the network or service operator before enabling the monitoring of its customers, whose communications are later handed over to a LEA in plaintext. This paper proposes the idea of employing a Digital Wiretap Warrant (DWW), which further protects the civil liberties, security and privacy of LI by ensuring that monitoring devices can only be enabled with a valid DWW, and by encrypting the captured data so only the authorized LEA is able to decrypt those communications. Moreover, in the proposed DWW framework all digital evidence is securely time-stamped and signed, thus guaranteeing that it has not been tampered with, and that a proper chain of custody has been met. In particular this paper proposes how to apply the DWW concept to the lawful interception framework defined by the ETSI LI Technical Committee, and evaluates how the additional security mechanisms could impact the performance and storage costs of a LI platform.     

法律现实主义与转型社会刑事司法

我国社会正处于转型期,各种社会矛盾凸显,刑事司法面临着新的挑战。西方的法律现实主义能为我国转型期刑事司法提供可资借鉴的方法论和改革思路。法律现实主义运动在批评形式主义与三段论式审判的基础上,把法律看作具有多重目标的社会引擎,关注司法行为、纠纷解决与社会问题。在中国语境下,引入法律现实主义,不是要简单地否定形式主义,而是应理性对待形式主义并在其中融入客观主义;应在刑事司法裁判中适用利益权衡,重视经验归纳而不拘泥于简单的演绎推理;应以实现社会正义为核心,构建合理衔接的多元纠纷解决机制。     

和谐社会呼唤立法平等

和谐社会的核心问题是协调好人与人的利益关系,利益关系在法律上表现为权利义务关系。当前我国出现一些不和谐现象的一个重要原因是立法上的权利义务分配不均。只有立法贯彻普遍平等的原则,赋予每个人平等的权利和义务,做到立法平等,才能使我们的社会利益趋于均衡,实现社会和谐。     

Civil Liberties and the Korean War

This article addresses the unsuccessful attempts to suppress free speech during the Korean War, and in particular explains the attempts to silence three reporters of alleged atrocities by United Nations forces. In the absence of carefully targeted legislation, the three individuals – Alan Winnington (a journalist), Monica Felton (a women's movement activist) and Jack Gaster (a solicitor) ‐ were threatened with or investigated for prosecution for treason or sedition, and Winnington was unable to renew his passport until 1968. Drawing heavily on archival sources (including MI5 files, which unusually fail to redact the identity of one of the lawyers who was reporting to Special Branch about Gaster's activities), the article explores the threat to civil liberties from the administrative as well as the legislative and the judicial power of the state. The article concludes by drawing contemporary parallels, and highlighting the continuing relevance of the writings of Winnington, Felton and Gaster.     

和谐社会与公众利益表达制度的法理思考

和谐社会的核心价值是利益和谐。利益和谐是指多元化利益的相互博弈、对话和妥协，进而达成某种利益矛盾的统一共识。利益和谐的前提和基础，取决于利益主体闽的各种利益诉求均有合法通畅的表达渠道。立法听证作为一种科学化、民主化和正当化的公众利益表达制度，可以将各种利益的冲突与矛盾纳入合法有序的制度环节而予以妥善解决，其对构建和谐社会具有十分重要的意义和价值。     

Having the cake and eating it too: efficient penalty clauses in Common and Civil contract law

In this paper we examine one of the areas where there is a marked difference between Civil and Common contract law, that of the enforcement of liquidated damages and more particularly of penalty clauses. Common law judges are quite reluctant to enforce liquidated damages, especially if they believe that they include penalty clauses which are not enforceable. On the contrary, in almost all European contract laws liquidated damages are readily enforced, as are penalty clauses when they are not manifestly excessive. Although most law and economics scholars have criticized Common law courts for the non-enforcement of penalty clauses, there is a sizable minority of scholars who have defended the Common law “non-enforcement” policy on the ground that penalty clauses are inefficient because they hinder efficient breach. However, and despite the merits of the arguments advanced by advocates of the non-enforcement of penalty clauses, we believe that Common law’s rejection of penalty clauses is inefficient. We further show that the Civil law solution to the problem is not only comparatively more efficient, but that it can also appease the worries of those scholars who are afraid that efficient breaches will be deterred. The solution that Civil law systems give to the problem manages to enforce the parties’ wishes and to avoid deterring efficient breaches. However, we point out that in order for the Civil law systems to take advantage of this superiority, the interpretation of their Civil Codes should be guided by economic analysis and the respect to the wishes of the contracting parties.     

建设法治政府与构建和谐社会

和谐社会是法治社会,法治政府在构建和谐社会中起主导和保障作用。建设法治政府是时代赋予的历史使命,法治政府依法管理社会,维护社会秩序,把冲突控制在秩序范围内,是构建和谐社会的基础;法治政府依法规范自己的权力,各级政府都要对自己作为或不作为的行为负责,打造负责任的法治政府是构建和谐社会的关键;完善立法,调适政府与公民的关系,解决人民内部矛盾纠纷是法治政府的职责,也是构建和谐社会的保障。     

法律对社会冲突的控制与和谐社会的构建

现实社会是冲突与和谐的统一体。和谐社会并不是不存在冲突,而是社会制度能够最大限度减少冲突。中国目前正处在构建社会主义和谐社会时期,需要从法律制度上对各种社会冲突进行有效控制。在立法上,建立一种服务于大多数人利益整合的制度,实现对利益的分配、保障和和谐;在司法上,做到阻止非法利益、平衡合法利益、容许法外利益,实现司法公正。     

论“文学革命”爆发的社会时代原因

1917年爆发的“文学革命”是社会时代的产物。社会制度由帝制而共和的变迁,社会恶劣环境状况的刺激,外来思想文化的影响,本土文学改良的积淀和新文化运动的助产,构成了“文学革命”产生的四大主要社会时代因素。     

和谐社会背景下的刑事司法功能解读

和谐社会建设已经成为我国社会发展的时代主题,和谐社会的构建离不开刑事司法的保障.刑事司法功能的全面发挥,必将有利于促进我国和谐社会建设的顺利进行.笔者在考察和谐社会与犯罪关系之后,对我国刑事司法功能进行了创造性解读.并在此基础上,对我国刑事司法功能运行进行了理性反思,分析刑事司法功能发挥之障碍,并提出应对之策,以促进刑事司法功能的全面实现.